Um, I know in 2003 I had a palm pilot which had a touchscreen in which I entered commands, possible with my finger if I lost my stylus. I'm sure PDAs have been around for a few years prior to 2003 if I had one in 2003. I could record voice, play music, and perform other functions covered by the broad definition of a portable electronic device (remote control was awesome for messing with people).

An anonymous reader writes: Microsoft has finally released the final build of Service Pack 2 for Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008. "The installers will work on English, French, German, Japanese, and Spanish versions of either Vista or Server 2008. Other language versions will arrive later. Those interested in slipstreamed versions of Vista and Server 2008 with SP2 will need to get an MSDN or TechNet subscription. There are a few significant additions that are included in SP2: Windows Search 4.0, Bluetooth 2.1 Feature Pack, the ability to record data on to Blu-Ray media natively in Vista, Windows Connect Now (WCN) is now in the Wi-Fi Configuration, and exFAT file system supports UTC timestamps. The service pack contains about 800 hotfixes." Download links included below,

BobB-nw writes: Novell will head to court this April to find out what it is owed, if anything, by SCO, which had been trying to earn royalties from Unix code it did not own. The four-day trial before Federal Judge Dale Kimball, who issued a ruling in Novell's favor Aug. 10, 2007 over ownership of Unix and UnixWare copyrights, could spell the final death blow for SCO. SCO's undoing has come from its own bravado and strategy to focus on lawsuits instead of product development.Link to Original Source

skolima writes: "In response to requests for even easier access to the Binary Formats, Microsoft has agreed to remove any intermediate steps necessary to get the documentation, and will post it and make it directly available for a direct download on the Microsoft web site. Microsoft will also make the Binary Formats subject to its Open Specification Promise by February 15, 2008.
And they will even an Open Source converter implementation. Woot?"Link to Original Source

mojo writes: The Republic of Macedonia Ministry of Education and Science will deploy more than 180,000 workstations running Canonical's Edubuntu 7.04 as part of its "Computer for Every Child" project.
The Republic of Macedonia "Computer for Every Child" project is one of the largest known thin client and desktop Linux eployments ever undertaken.Link to Original Source

Brave Anonymous writes: Porn industry representatives gathered at an anti-piracy conference last week to discuss solutions to the ever growing amount of pirated porn that's traded on BitTorrent sites and other P2P-networks.
"Piracy is becoming a serious problem for the adult industry. It is estimated that 5% of all files being shared on public BitTorrent trackers are adult content, and most of these files are copyrighted. The adult industry representatives that took part in the three hour anti-piracy session estimated that they lose approximately $2 billion a year thanks to piracy, about 4% of their total income worldwide.
Several countermeasures were discussed during the meeting. One of the suggestions was to create an MPAA/RIAA equivalent for the adult industry that helps to track down pirates and pursue legal action.
http://torrentfreak.com/porn-industry-to-take-on-bittorrent-sites-070910/

siDDis writes: Earlier this year Slashdot mentioned that Norway moves towards mandatory use of ODF and PDF. Now it's confirmed that the Norwegian government has mandated the use of open document formats from January 1st, 2009.

There are three formats that have been mandated for all documentation between authorities, users and partners. HTML for all public information on the Web, PDF for all documents where layout needs to be preserved and ODF for all documents that the recipient is supposed to be able to edit. Documents may also be published in other formats, but they must always be available in either ODF or PDF.

Fake Newser writes: "The Recording Industry Association of America wants to communicate with TV News audiences. The company I work for just distributed this video package nationwide to TV News Stations. It already aired in Dallas and one network and one major news gathering service have requested tapes. This thing could be all over the news this week. The video you see was preceded by graphics which told stations who paid for the content and offered the name and title of the spokesperson.
This is how the RIAA and other organizations get their news out and influence consumers like you.
Here's the actual VNR, missing only the informational slates that preceded it on the satellite feeds.... http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=f09_1198188234"Link to Original Source

An anonymous reader writes: Today the Perl Foundation announces the release of Perl 5.10, the first major upgrade to the wildly popular dynamic programming language in over five years. This latest version builds on the successful 5.8.x series by adding powerful new language features and improving the Perl interpreter itself. The Perl development team, called the the Perl Porters, have taken features and inspiration from the ambitious Perl 6 project, as well as from chiefly academic languages and blended them with Perl's pragmatic view to practicality and usefulness.

Last Saturday we had our annual company Christmas party. It was a lot of fun as usual but it featured one special surprise. It turns out that several people had been secretly working late nights and into the wee hours of the morning preparing a special video for those at the party. They created a short teaser for Duke Nukem Forever.

After seeing the teaser we thought it was something we should share with all of you and while it's just a teaser, rest assured more is coming.

Tomorrow, Wednesday the 19th, around noon CST, we will release the first teaser trailer from Duke Nukem Forever. To tide you over until then, there has been a screen shot taken from the teaser and posted in our forums. Check it out here (http://forums.3drealms.com/vb/showthread.php?t=29639).

Thank you for being fans of the game and for your continued patience.

We'd like to thank the people on the team that worked so hard to create this teaser and the friends of 3DR that helped create it (Jeremy Soule and Julian Soule, Frank Bry, Jason Evigan and of course, Jon St. John).Link to Original Source